Long Island Historical Census Atlas

Long Island's Transformation: 1970-2010

By 1970, most of the great migration from New York City to Long Island had already taken place. From 1950 to 1970, the combined population of Nassau and Suffolk more than doubled in size, growing by over 1.6 million people as suburban development had pushed well into central Suffolk County. In the forty years that followed, however, the island's population grew by less than 300,000 (from Regional Plan Association, Jan. 2015 / PDF).

The Center for Urban Research (CUR) has mapped Long Island's population changes from 1970 to 2010, revealing that this modest increase in total population masked dramatic changes in its composition. Our maps, at historiccensus.longislandindexmaps.org , visualize these changes over the recent past and provide the foundation for anticipating and shaping Long Island's future growth.